Written by

Cindi Andrews and Bowdeya Tweh

Last days of Tower Place: A visit to downtown's mall as the last stores close

Workers install a debris shoot in preparation for renovations at the old Tower Place Mall along Fourth Street. / The Enquirer/Gary Landers

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Work is under way to turn the defunct Tower Place mall into Mabley Place – a fancy, nostalgic name for a building that will help fill one of downtown Cincinnati’s most basic, practical needs.

Mabley Place, at the intersection of Fourth and Race streets, will be a parking garage, primarily, with 775 parking spaces. Several retail or restaurant spaces will also fill the exterior of the first floor.

“We need parking in central Downtown” for visitors, shoppers, workers and residents, said David Ginsburg, CEO of Downtown Cincinnati Inc. “It’s an amenity that, especially in the south central part of Downtown, is a big need.”

Even though the number of Downtown garage and lot spaces rose 16 percent in the previous five years, to 36,917 in 2012, the average monthly price rose 19 percent in that same time, according to Downtown Cincinnati Inc.

Mabley Place will also be the southernmost point of the city’s proposed Race Street retail corridor. The store will open to the street, unlike those that occupied the former mall.

“It brings a prime Downtown corner back into service,” said Kathleen Norris, a retail consultant who’s working on the corridor. “Outward-facing retail draws shoppers in much more easily.”

The name Mabley probably rings a bell with longtime Cincinnatians: The Mabley & Carew department store reached its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, and Elder-Beerman bought it out in 1978. Mabley & Carew used to have a store in the Carew Tower, which is attached to the former Tower Place.

Construction manager JDL Warm couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday but previously told the city the redevelopment would take a year. Fencing went up around the building at Fourth and Race streets in December.

Plans call for former mall entrances on both streets to be turned into car ramps to access 525 existing spaces in the upper levels of the building and 250 new spaces to be added where stores such as Banana Republic, Ann Taylor and Victoria’s Secret used to be. One retail spot will open onto Race, one onto Fourth, and the largest will be on the corner.

The city of Cincinnati bought Tower Place and the former Pogue’s garage, across Race Street on Fourth, for $8.5 million almost a year ago in a deal that prevented the properties from sliding into foreclosure. The city sold the mall to an affiliate of JDL Warm for $1 after the few remaining tenants moved out. JDL Warm will spend about $5 million to redevelop Mabley Place, it told the city.

The city has leased the Pogue’s garage site to Indianapolis-based developer Flaherty & Collins, which expects to begin demolishing the crumbling, 45-year-old structure June 1, according to Vice President Jim Crossin.

It will be replaced with a 30-story tower featuring 300 high-end apartments, a 15,000-square-foot independent grocery store and a 1,000-space garage. The city is contributing $12 million toward that $97 million project.

The skywalk that connects the former mall and the Pogue’s garage across Race Street will be removed.